Net sales at Novartis took a hit in the fourth quarter of 2025 as generic versions of some of its iconic drugs faced competition from new producers. Group sales for the period were $13.3 billion, down by 1% at constant exchange rates and up by just 1% as measured in dollars. For the year as a whole, the company reported sales of $54.5 billion, up by 8% in constant and actual exchange rates.
Novartis started construction on 6 February of a new biomedical research centre in San Diego, US, which is one of three global hubs for the company’s drug discovery activities. The other two hubs are in Cambridge, US, and Basel, Switzerland. The move is part of a previously announced $23 billion investment in the US that will also include a new manufacturing site in North Carolina and a site in California to produce radioligand therapies.
Sanofi SA ended 2025 with sales of €43.6 billion and net income of €7.8 billion as it continued to reap the benefits of Dupixent, its anti-inflammatory drug developed with Regeneron Pharmaceuticals and first approved in 2017. Dupixent generated sales of €15.7 billion, or 36% of group sales, as it continued to experience strong demand from patients with asthma and other chronic diseases. The annual results were announced on 29 January.
The Roche Group delivered revenue of CHF 61.5 billion ($79.2 billion) in 2025 – an increase of 2% in Swiss francs and 7% at constant exchange rates and driven by five products covering a diverse group of diseases. The revenue was sufficiently large to offset the company’s loss of income in the US from six legacy products, including Herceptin, the world’s first targeted therapy for cancer.
BC Platforms AG of Switzerland has struck another collaboration with an institution that collects anonymised data from patients, significantly expanding its repertoire of information that can be used in medical research. The collaboration is with OmicsBank, a US-based company with access to patient data from emerging markets. Specifically, the partnership will give BC Platforms rights to data from India and the United Arab Emirates, countries which have been under-represented in global pharmaceutical research. The financial terms of the collaboration were not disclosed.
Within weeks of becoming chief executive of GSK Plc, Luke Miels took responsibility for a $2.2 billion deal to acquire RAPT Therapeutics, a US company with a late stage product for food allergies. The acquisition will give GSK a monoclonal antibody that is being developed as a prophylactic with a dosing schedule that it says is potentially more attractive than a product marketed by Roche.
AstraZeneca Plc is to expand its drug manufacturing and research and development presence in China with an investment of $15 billion through 2030. China is already the company’s second largest market after the US, as well as a significant source of medical research and business collaborations. The new investment will build on this foundation. AstraZeneca announced the plan on 29 January, concurrent with a visit by UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer to China to strengthen economic ties between the two countries.
GSK Plc has reach an agreement to acquire US-based RAPT Therapeutics Inc for $2.2 billion, strengthening its position in the field of medicines for inflammatory and immunologic diseases. The US company’s lead product, ozureprubart, is a monoclonal antibody that is being developed as a prophylactic against food allergens. It targets immunoglobulin E (IgE) which is the mode of action of at least one other approved biologic. Other treatments include allergen-specific immunotherapies. The standard of care is avoidance of allergens.
The European Medicines Agency issued positive opinions for 104 new medicines in 2025 of which 38 were drugs with new active substances, according to the agency’s annual human medicines report issued on 15 January. At 38, the number is fewer than the 46 novel drugs recommended during the previous year, but no less impactful.
Follicular lymphoma is a type of slow-growing blood cancer affecting B lymphocytes, a type of white blood cell that plays a critical role in immunity. There are many types of lymphomas but follicular is distinctive because of its tendency to grow slowly, starting in the follicules of lymph nodes and then expanding outwards. There are multiple approaches for treating the disease including an early observational phase known as ‘watch and wait’ where physicians monitor patients to identify symptoms that could justify a pharmaceutical treatment.